And the Oscar Doesn't Go To..

A piece in the 'Economist' concludes:

Within Hollywood, of course, the Academy Awards still matter a great deal. Prestige and acclaim are hard currency in the film business, in many ways more valuable than money. The danger is that Hollywood’s taste in its own products is becoming as removed from public opinion as its political views are outside the American mainstream. What viewers will see on Sunday night is an industry talking to itself.

But James Patterson doesn't need to win a Pulitzer. He shouldn't even be considered for a Pulitzer because it would be defeating the whole purpose. His purpose is to make money. The purpose of the academy is to identify and honor artistes who made a worthy contribution. The giant financial machine that Hollywood is, it may not have been wise for it to exclude 'The Dark Knight', a giga-blockbuster and include 'Milk', an anemic-moneyspinner in the best picture category. But where else will the producers of 'Milk' be commended for telling the story of a forgotten man? How else can they pat on their backs for embarking on a project that didn't have a viable revenue generating star/story? How else are Melissa Leo & Richard Jenkins (who were nominated in the top acting categories) going to be recognized for their brilliant performances in minor productions that didn't play in theaters near you.

Oscar was once Hollywood's prom night. It still is, in terms of glitz and glamor, but in terms of recognition the members of the academy have opened up and started accepting range. Cannes & Berlin have a different style of scouting films where they go hunting all over the world. Oscars, though still mostly American, many nominations in the recent years have belogned to low-budget no-names in the eye of an international viewer. That's a welcome departure because the prestige & acclaim that comes with Oscar is more valuable than hard currency and that is what keeps the art of moving pictures moving.

*

A.R.Rahman, the wonderboy from Chennai won Oscars for original score & song. A couple of weeks back I was listening to 'Uzhavan', one of his earlier soundtracks. The variety of this album borders on genius. 'Slumdog Millionaire' pales very much in comparison to 'Uzhavan'. So, I think it's fair to assume that if someone from Peru decides to dig up Rahman's earlier works, they're only going to be more impressed. Baradwaj Rangan wrote a piece a few weeks back explaining how the interconnected world has shrunk the cultural gap and increased the base of audience for Rahman's music. That's definitely one of the reasons why Rahman was picked up by Andrew Lloyd Weber in London and why M.S.V or Ilayaraja wasn't popular even in North India. Though Ilayaraja's music is closest to my heart, I'm very proud of Rahman's contribution to international music.

Oscar Live Tweets

• Hugh Jackman did an amazingly fluid opening sequence.  He'll be setting a new benchmark in hosting, I hope.
• Slumdog opens its account with an Oscar for adapted screenplay.  I'm afraid this undeserving movie is going to sweep the top categories.
• I'm hoping to witness at least one interesting Oscar speech.  Three speeches so far, and all have been flat.
• Wall-E wins best animation.  I thought the animation (the Earth part) was extraordinarily brilliant.  But I found the screenplay sugary-preachy.
• Production Design goes to Benjamin Button.  The streets and cars and street lights and beer bottles looked authentic in this movie.  The movie didn't have a heart, but had a great body.
• Make-up to Benjamin Button.  Really, I didn't know what was computer generated and what was prosthetic.  I think this movie will score a lot more in the technical achievements section.
• Oh boy, doesn't anybody have anything interesting to say upon accepting the trophy.
• Wally Pfister didn't get it for his cinematography for 'Dark Knight'.  I thought the sweeping epic tone was very much imparted by his magnificent eye.  I don't know if I'm sad that he didn't get the Oscar for his work or Mantle won for Slumdog.
• The 4 living actors nominated for a best supporting actor are unlucky - the members of the academy just wanted to see Heath Ledger's family on stage as their thank you note before they forget.  Ledger was chillingly brilliant in 'Dark Knight'.  But did you see 'Tropic Thunder'?  You'll understand why Robert Downey Jr is a magnificent actor.  Any other year, hands down, he would have won.
• Bill Maher, my favorite observational comedian, presented the best documentary.  But he went on a shameless self-promotion of his own documentary 'Religulous'. 'Man of Wire', a documentary about a man who walked between the two towers in the 70s won in this category.  It had a great buzz even before it was nominated.  And it's on Netflix Instant Play.
• Rahman wins.  Wow, I still vividly remember being blown away by his 'Vellai Mazhai'.  Though his score for 'Slumdog Millionaire' is not his best this is a long overdue recognition.
• Rahman wins again for 'Jai Ho'.  He caught the eyeballs of film producers all over the world tonight.  I wish he had hired a speech writer. Both speeches were a bit clumsy.
• Two talented actors take the top acting prizes - Kate Winslet for 'Reader' and Sean Penn for 'Milk'.  Kate Winslet said 'I can't believe we're competing with Meryl Streep' - well, Kate is very nicely maturing into the next Meryl in terms of depth & range.
• Best picture, anybody's guess.  What can I say, these are economically bad times and the members of the academy just love to see an underdog win a million.

Amazon, You Know It's the Content, Not the Device

When there is a business tie-up between the content provider and the device manufacturer for using that content, the price of the device has almost always been very inexpensive to lure in new customers. The price of iPods have steadily fallen because Apple makes money out of songs. Cell phones are inexpensive with service packages because of money/minute. Amazon has a deal with almost all the leading publishers, and almost every new book (which I assume is a major revenue generator) published will/should have an electronic version transferable through Kindle. In that case why price the reading device as high as $359?

Are they waiting for Kindle's usability to evolve? Are they waiting for the market for e-books to mature? We're in a recession now, didn't you know? People don't mind shelling out $10 for a Grisham e-novel. And they won't mind another $10 the following month for their favorite painter's e-biography. But they mind a lot paying $359 upfront for an e-reader - which in effect turns away the subsequent cash influx because of the sales of Kindle editions. The recent version, Kindle 2 offers more value (more memory, smaller size, etc) for the same price. For me, lesser price and same value would have made more economic sense. This would be taking a leaf from the success of Netbooks - a computer with lesser memory & lesser processing power at a lower price.

I think Amazon has manufactured only a limited number of Kindles so that it can collect extensive feedback and incorporate them into their next version. This way, a lot of users stand in queue and there are only a few disgruntled users. The electronic publishing industry is still an infant. The publish-on-demand and publish-yourself style services have greatly reduced inventory, thereby only printing copies that has a buyer. As the older generation which held newspapers in the mornings and flipped pages go away, Kindle and its competitors will become the default standard of reading. Reducing the price, say, to $100 and going for an early kill will disrupt the existing publishing model. Either that or Amazon needs to be kicked in the butt by somebody already in the content business - Apple or Microsoft or Sony.

The Gazprom Episode

Russia's oil & gas resources not only fills their coffers with money but also adds muscle when it comes to political negotiations. On January 1, the Russian state-run gas company Gazprom closed their pipes that supplies 25% of gas to most of the European countries. This is their argument: The pipes run through Ukraine to other countries. Ukraine has been stealing gas. And going forward they'll have to pay the market value which is $430/cum from their current subsidized $180/cum. This decision comes in the middle of a chilly winter and most of the eastern European nations that heavily depend on this supply to heat their homes, not to mention some of the industries.

Except for island nations, most of the countries today have political issues with their neighbors because of contiguous borders. And there are evergreen discussions to solve them without affecting the daily routine. Responsible nations don't react as sharply as Russia did to seriously undermine the daily affairs of so many dependent countries. One of the reasons is because of the free fall in the price of oil: from $144/barrel in July' 08 to $43 today. Such drops have left Russian foregin reserves in bad shape and Putin is trying to make it up by flexing his negotiating muscle through Gazprom. The other reason is that this cut-off could serve as a warning message to Ukraine for seeking NATO membership. Russia has expressed displeasure at having too many NATO members close to its western border. (Since politically powerful European players like Germany and France too depend on Russian supplies, they turn a blind eye to Ukraine's request for NATO entry.)

Russia is not entirely unjustified in its demand: it has been buying gas from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and they have increased their prices. There's also demand for energy from China which contributes to a spike. But cutting off the supply doesn't only grind the gears to a halt, it also has a lot of socio-economic repercussions. Bulgaria, which heavily relies on Russian supply, has about 20 days of energy resources and their economy could cripple if the gas pipes remain locked. Industries are halting production in Hungary and Romania. Many households are bracing to face harsh winter without heat. Although the dependent countries could call Russia & Ukraine 'irresponsible & uncivilized', they also feel the political power of Russia and the effects of antagonizing it.

Twenty years since the end of cold war the west & Russia have only warily shaken hands and have tried to gain geopolitical allies next to their cold enemies. While a bunch of ex-Soviet breakaway countries are now in NATO, Russia signs a multibillion dollar military deal with Venezuela (the largest non-Arab oil supplier). While US bullies by means of shadow confrontation (mostly economic sanctions), Russia bullies like a bully. While Russia is home to a huge number of billionaires and while Moscow is touted as the most expensive place on the planet, the gap between the rich & poor is dizzyingly high. The oil price drop in the eighties is attributed as one of the reasons for the downfall of the Soviet regime. While hard-negotiations like the Gazprom seal may turn out to be in favor of Russia in the short term, it has to understand that it isn't making any friends. Call me idiotically optmistic, I believe we're going to see some viable alternative fuel technologies in 10 years from now and its not coming from Russia. And when the market frenetically switches to them the energy giants are going to find themselves neither with friends nor with any clout.

Economic Peace

Charles Krauthammer writes for the Post:

For Hamas, the only thing more prized than dead Jews are dead Palestinians.

Charles explodes the car bomb at the center of the market (well, my context-equivalent of 'hitting the nail on the head'). Hamas spreads their ammunition and military leaders very well among civilians that it becomes hard for Israelis to isolate and target them. The inevitable civilian casualty is used as a political brownie for the Hamas leaders to send a message to nearby Islamic capitals. In fact, the bigger the number, the better it is for Hamas to paint their horror picture. While the editors of a Pakistani daily write '...amply demonstrate the Jewish state’s unending thirst for Palestinian blood' they make no mention of the 2000+ rocket launches aimed at Israeli civilians in the past two years. While young men from Iran are willing to be suicide bombers to teach the Jewish state a lesson and their leaders funnel arms into Gaza, did any of Hamas' Arab neighbors worry about building the place... building as how it happens in actual development.

Hamas has always been more interested in the destruction of Israel than the construction of Palestine. Well, I'm not even sure if Hamas leaders ever discussed anything about roads, bridges, schools, colleges, hospitals, doctors, social welfare or even a freaking decent TV show. Hamas has done very poorly as a democratically elected party to address the basic necessities of an average person. Most of the money poured in for development has been well spent on buying rockets and digging tunnels to smuggle those rockets. But there weren't any mass rallies protesting the incompetence & corruption of the management like the ones over offensive Danish cartoons. When Israel's foreign minister says they'll retaliate (not instigate), a Hamas leader responds that they'll continue their attacks - which is only going to result in a strong retaliation, which will result in more deaths, which will provide a strong political capital for Hamas leadership to seek sympathy votes among middle-east.

The stated problem revolves around territorial integrity and religion. One can only achieve ceasefire, not peace in the region when the leaders talk at Camp David. You can call it an accord or a treaty, but in a practical sense it's only an extended ceasefire until someone loosens their grip - and in most cases it will be from a Palestinian territory. I believe lasting peace can only be achieved when there is considerable economic growth. The poverty level is crushing, the unemployment rate is unbelievably high and the leaders incite the youth in terms of nationalism, religion and Israeli oppression. That's why young men line up for the suicide bomber squad. If they all had a decent job and were able to feed their families and had a sense of reasonable financial safety that they wouldn't be broke the next day or week or month, their quest for their homeland and eviction of Israelis would only be of theoretical interest - something that's discussed in tea shops and when they get home they'll worry about how to get their kids to colleges.

Geographically extrapolating, the middle-east cannot for long run their show: drill oil, sell oil, subsidize everything and live happily ever after. They have to look at Turkey which wants to be a modern state morphing itself to align with EU. They they have to look at Dubai and start inviting investors and create a conducive environment for real growth. They have to fund state-sponsored schools better than madrasas. They have to include women in building the society. Unless there's a fundamental change in the way Hamas top brass thinks, not of military leadership but of economic leadership, there's going to be conflict around the corner. I'm extremely saddened when I look at the hospitals in Gaza. The death of 530+ which includes a lot of women and children does seem like a disproportional response. But if one of those killed children would have later become a suicide-bomber, I would say Israel proceeded in the right direction.

WTF?

I rarely get offensive. I'm the kind of guy who'd go to all lengths to avoid a confrontation. You have a different viewpoint, let me hear about it; a different faith, fine; you're a gay, enjoy; you're pro-abortion, you're anti-abortion, well I'm pro-choice. But when ignorance is perpetuated as wisdom, it bothers me.


A girl born with two faces (Craniofacial Duplication) is worshiped as a reincarnation of a godess. We already have too many gods, godesses, saints and satans running around. Get a life, guys!

Walking on the Chesil Beach

The process of falling in love is, to use a cliche, beautiful & tender. And to get those authentic feelings in words, another cliche, next to impossible. Ian McEwan's On the Chesil Beach is a beautiful and tender work accomplishing a near impossible task of capturing the thought processes of a young couple. Just before the seventies which indulged the young men & women into sexual liberation, was the sixties where courtship was marked by formalities. It was commonplace for English men and women to remain virgins on the first night of their marriage, which precisely is the central scene of novel. Though sex is the crux, the themes McEwan touches are more mature and universal.

Florence 22, is an ambitious violinist; Edward 23, is close to clueless about his career. Her poise belongs to upper class; he has gotten into street fights. She's rich and he's not. But their diversities dissolve completely in their admiration for each other. She listens to rock'n roll because he brought it to her and let's him touch her so that he'll be happy. But the kind of touch she enjoys the most is arm-in-arm walk down the park or hugging and cuddling in the bed - all fully clothed. She's terrified at the very idea of sex, as if a foreign missile directed at her private space. Edward, like most of the men his age is extremely excited at the very prospect of charting into virgin territories. This clash of bedroom interests leads to moments of youthful foolishness that defines their life.

These are the opening lines: They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible. But it is never easy. You couldn't blame the lady, for how could she openly discuss her sexual preferences (not inadequacies) with a man who has monstrous expectations on that night. And no point blaming the gentleman - his age and the weighty occasion put him on a high-speed lane. Where he merely suffered conventional first-night nerves, she experienced a visceral dread, a helpless disgust as palpable as seasickness. He desperately tries to control his emotions which want him to explode while she bravely wears a happy-face mask in order to accommodate him.

Like in 'Atonement', there's a defining moment in this plot which places their lives on a forked road. Saying something stupid, or not saying anything at all might alter the course of lives. It's not enough to love; sometimes patience with love is what keeps us sane, is what holds a marriage together, is what keeps the family wheel spinning, McEwan reminds us. As soon as I finished the novel, I hugged my wife and said "You know I love you and.... just bear with me".

Resurrection of the Art

I know that most of the regulars (5, well, may be 6 readers including my family of 4) are here because of my movie-blog ScreenArt. I didn't find myself very passionate about writing for movies and had to cut down on directing my writing skills there. Not anymore. I'm back with a small piece, and plan to chop off a formal tone that I had maintained over there. I plan to write in a more conversational tone and worry less about the completeness of the post. They won't be reviews, just a collection of my thoughts about the movie presented as a coherent piece. Let's see how well this goes!

Technology.Is.Cool

The objective of the video game is to direct any crudely drawn closed figure that you draw to a crudely drawn star on the screen. But forget the objective - just observe your entities perfectly obey the laws of physics on the screen roads you've carved. May not be useful. But an enjoyable way to waste time.

Here's a demo that you can try.

Elite Prostitution & the Art of Listening

In a very good article on prostitution in NYC and other global cities, Sudhir Venkatesh writes:

What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York's sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That's one helluva conversation. But it's what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse. Over the course of a year, they will sometimes persuade the woman to take on a new identity, replete with a fake name, a fake job, a fake life history, and so on. They may want to have sex or they may simply want to be treated like King for a Day.

The writer quotes figures north of $10K a month for these sex workers. And it's not for flesh but to listen to what the guy has to say. I guess the terribly busy workforce womenfolk in the cities don't have as much time or patience or willingness or tolerance or empathy or a combination of these to listen to what their husband has to say when they hit the bed. Now, isn't it usually an accusation on men that they never listen?

Thinking about it seriously, I think these men treat these women not as sex workers but as a tool to relieve their stress. I guess it makes a man in his 40s or 50s feel good (say a top executive in a Manhattan office) to have a young beautiful woman listen to what he has to say with fake compassion. He would very well know that the woman might be least interested in the topic he brings to the table; but the point is that he carries home an image of a good looking girl who has also been a good listener which makes him feel good. Now, for someone who makes top dollars, that's better than sex.

Political Activism

Why is there not an age for retirement from politics? Hunger for power is something I can understand when someone is in his/her 40s or 50s. When one steps into 60s, he/she can't just keep up with the pace at which events happen in the world. Brain being just another biological machine, cannot process information into knowledge & that knowledge into wisdom effectively when its been around for 60 years. And not being abreast with the developments - not just politically, but economically, technologically & socially, the best public service a leader can perform is to retire and let the relatively younger folks take over.

Experience is of no use after a threshold. In fact, too much experience in politics is detrimental as one loses the vision to steer the statre. Jyoti Basu (W Bengal), Karunanidhi (TN), Karunakaran (Kerala), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Suharto (Indonesia).... This is not to say that they did/doing a bad job in their old age; but a sad realization that things could have been better if only someone else had been at the helm. As mentioned earlier, when one needs an assistant to help him stand up (literally) it's quite difficult to understand their love for a chair.

That funny & sad cartoon was published in the Time magazine when Fidel handed over the reins to his brother Raul Castro, 76.

Potlatch Effect

Potlatch is a festival among the natives of the Pacific Northwest where a family or an individual establishes or exhibits his supreme status over his neighbors by throwing away his valuables. Though the wealth is shared in some rare cases, in most of the cases Potlatch was marked by burning material. Now, the basic idea should be something like this: I can continue to live (comfortably?) even without these items which are considered essential in the society. Sounds very stupid right?

But this effect continues to exist in other forms in almost all the cultures. Status symbols linked with waste of resources is quite common. Most of the Indian marriages can be labeled a distant cousin of Potlatch. All that needless extravaganza just for the visitors to go gaga! What's worse is that such events continue to raise the bar; money down the drain marriages are seen as benchmarks which the future event organizers will try to match or surpass. Consider tipping at restaurants - I don't have a problem with the waiters making some extra money. But the idea of showing off one's wealth by over-the-top tipping sets the snowball rolling and effectively raises the average because of peer pressure. In a manner of speaking, sometimes some people spending inline with their income can up the ante for those a rung or two below in the economic ladder who are bent on playing a cat & mouse game to catch up - only in the means of spending, but not in income generation. Modern day Potlatch is very vibrant. It almost makes someone frugal like me seem unfit to be a social animal.

She

Starry night,
white clouds,
gentle and soothing,
cool & blue, just like you.

But why erupt,
fierce and red,
time & again,
very unlike you.




Image Couresy: Wired

Oh... the choices

Barry Schwartz, a professor of Social Theory talks about the perils of too many choices in affluent western societies in this TED talk. His focal points are that when people are presented with too many choices, they either

• get confused and procrastinate decision-making
• make a hasty choice and repent for not making the perfect choice
• feel dissatisfied with even the best of choices for not meeting their expectations

I disagree with him on all counts. Barry cites a statistic where the number of people opting for retirement benefits go down with the increasing number of fund options available. Well, if someone is such a dud as to be baffled by the options and decides not to make a decision or keep procrastinating, it speaks of the preparedness, foresightedness and responsibility towards life of the person. The point that these guys would have made a decision had there been only a few choices is not only a bad argument, but means that a self-contained market without progressions of any sort is how we get people to buy. This is not only illogical, but also insane.

Barry is of the opinion that when the buyers don't get their choice right, they repent and brood. This scenario doesn't occur when there are only a few, or even better just one choice (in which case, there's no choice at all). It's true that people are unhappy if their selection turns out to be less than what they had in mind. But isn't that how one sharpens their decision making abilities? If there were only one cellphone available in the market, you wouldn't bother to look into its configurations. Just because there are so many brands with varying degrees of features, the user takes the pain of educating himself about all the features, assesses if he needs them and then makes an informed decision. There's still a chance that he may brood, but at least he learns from the experience, owns up responsibility for his decision and in the process becomes a shrewd decision-maker.

The third point doesn't have much to do with the number of options available rather than the personality we're talking about. If one is not satisfied with, say the top of the line Bose stereo system, may be he should just wait for the field of acoustics to get better or sponsor a sound research institute. A negligible chunk of the demographics will always be unhappy because of their ridiculous expectations. They're only a minuscule and the market hadn't cared for them.

Update: Barry is correct when he says that multiple options lead to a little bit of confusion and/or hesitation. But he clearly blames the market and exaggerates the multitude of choices instead of researching how people can and should decide from the pool of options.

Fashionophobia

Jessa Crispin on fashion guides:

Instead of alleviating our body fears, however, so many books advising what to wear do nothing but exaggerate them. The entire structure of Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine’s book 'What Not to Wear' is built to help you define your particular version of body dysmorphic disorder. Do you think you have short legs? A big butt? Big arms? There’s a chapter telling you how to dress around each perceived flaw. It’s hard to walk out the door feeling hot and feisty when your entire dressing process has been focused on your main source of anxiety. If I tried to dress to hide all the parts of my body I have ever been self-conscious about, the only thing left to wear would be a hazmat suit.

That's bang on target. Any trend that sets in, should at the least be comfortable. If a dress or a decoration comes into vogue inspite of its lack of comfort, the chances are good that it won't sustain. As pointed out by the writer, any guide that provides a fancy work around to hide what you think is your weakest or ugliest organ just feeds to your anxiety. There's nothing wrong in trying to present yourself beautifully; but it shouldn't come at the cost accepting your body as it is.

Tom Evslin writes on failure:

set only low goals; then you’ll fail even if you meet them.

Brevity is beauty.

Gender Equality

Amit Varma writes:

... more divorces = less women trapped in bad marriages. An increasing divorce rate indicates that women are being empowered with more choices...

But Amit is biased: the increasing divorce rate also frees men trapped in bad marriages who would otherwise have silently put up because of a pseudo moral obligation to hang on to a financially incapable woman. The society would mercilessly foul-mouth an earning man divorcing his home-maker wife even if she's the reason for ruining the marriage. But I believe such cases have always been in the minority and mostly its been men wearing the pants.

Poor Dear

Sharjah has enforced dress code for mannequins. Great. The next logical step would be to allow only men to touch men mannequins & women near women mannequins. And then the minimum distance between those two mannequins. And then the beautiful world of mannequins would be compliant.

Grand Engineering Challenges

Some of the top brains got together to list the top engineering challenges of the 21st century. Most of the challenges are abstract, a view from 50,000 feet without fleshing out any concrete action plans. Here is what they came up with:

1. Make solar energy affordable.
2. Provide energy from fusion.
3. Develop carbon sequestration methods.
4. Manage the nitrogen cycle.
5. Provide access to clean water.
6. Restore and improve urban infrastructure.
7. Advance health informatics.
8. Engineer better medicines.
9. Reverse-engineer the brain.
10. Prevent nuclear terror.
11. Secure cyberspace.
12. Enhance virtual reality.
13. Advance personalized learning.
14. Engineer the tools for scientific discovery.

Number 9 personally resonates because I recently read Phantoms in the Brain, a popular science book that explains how the brain works, and how we think the brain works. V.S.Ramachandran, the author explains that reverse engineering may not be the answer to understand how our body parts work. For example, if one were to understand how a human stomach works just by reverse engineering, one would have to analyze the food consumed and the drops that come out and with these two samples the scientist would construct a blackbox that will transform food into excretion. But the actual digestive process is thoroughly complex and in now way deducible by looking at a blackbox model. And brain, which is extremely superior and probably the most complex organ in this planet cannot be understood by reverse engineering, in my opinion.

Number 14 piques my curiosity. I have some ideas about what the panel may mean when they say 'engineer the tools for scientific discovery'. They aren't talking about scientific inventions, but scientific discoveries which could range from anything between understanding the genetic make up of human species to unearthing fossils or lost civilizations. Scientific discovery in the field of medicine can enable better living standards and in other fields like archeology or paleontology can offer valuable insights about how the earth came to be what it is today and where it may be headed. But this is something only the rich countries can afford to do while the rest are busy either catching up (like India & China) or go down (central African countries).

Number 11 is a no brainer. By the end of the century computers/internet would have radically transformed the way people live. They would have taken new shapes, forms, acquired immense power, would have great reach and will play a vital role in how the economic engine of countries works. Within my lifetime, I'll probably have my preferences set in a repository which will contain data about how hot my bathing water should be, my video rentals, my cuisine choices, etc. When I check into a hotel, they'll have access to these information and will be able to provide personalized services. Now, with this kind of personal data on the internet, security is something that will strongly touch a common man.

On Rape

In a bestial act, seven men raped a 12-year-old girl child in Kanpur, India. This happened in front of her younger siblings; after the act she was battered to death. A crime well accomplished, but a question lingers. Why? It's a open-ended question, with so many possibilities after that 'why' and before that '?' but that was all I managed to come up with. Again: why? It's a helpless cry; you cry because the event warrants an outburst and the cry is helpless because policemen, who were supposed to maintain the law & order were involved in the gang-rape.

Rapes happen all over the world. But such events can almost certainly never happen in the first world countries. It's the animal inside a man that pits him against a hapless tender female body. In a country like U.S.A, I'm sure that for seven men to have cornered a young girl, all of them need to be certified pedophiles working out a well coordinated plan to commit such a crime. Whereas in countries like India and other poor ones, these are normal guys walking the streets. They might have a history of harassment (lightly dismissed as eve teasing) but the police wouldn't bother to pursue, punish or prune such rogues, because they know the taste of female flesh themselves. I know I run the risk of generalization by blaming the entire police force. Mind you, Indian police is one of the 10 most corrupt police forces in the world. Had there been a survey on how they treat women, they would have been in the top 5. Which is why, on popular public demand, India has women-only police stations - such a shame.

Bloodthirsty hounds in human form, the rapists wouldn't even have a fetish for young girls. They rape because they can. That's how dark it can get in such societies. When they see a door open with a young girl in the absence of strong muscles, they jump on her. We have long tolerated a culture of physically over-powering men reminiscent of hunter-gatherers fighting over a piece of skin. And this toleration arises from a multitude of factors with the top 3 being: the offenders have political clout; they belong to the mafia; even worse, they are the police. For an average Indian middle/lower class to fight any of the three mentioned goons is a high stake game. You should be ready to forgo your life to bring them to the book. Since most of victims are aware of the emotional expenses involved in pursuing the criminals, they just put up with the event and get on with their lives.

How are we to prevent such incidents? Women empowerment? Minimize the segregation between men & women in closed cultures? A clean police force? More stringent punishments?.... There are many more bridges that will close the gap. But the primary driving force will be education. I know that I sound very text-bookish when I say education. I refer to education that produces an expanding mind that understands women's role in the progress of a society, a culturally open mind that doesn't fit womenfolk into roles which their grandmothers performed, a loving mind that addresses the need for women's freedom to express. Such a mind cannot be shaped by school education (though it will help to some extent). For a faster & efficient growth, men need to understand that societies need to be built with both hands.